I thought I’d share my thoughts on copyright following on from some conversations I’ve had recently, and with reference to my own work being copied in the past. This has been prompted by discussions with other artists one of whom has designed some work for a well known cathedral and then been told that someone else is going to carve their designs. It brings the whole issue of artistic integrity, dishonourable behaviour, intellectual and pictorial copyright and general skulduggery and theft into the conversation.

The image above shows a Mesoamerican ‘Hacha’ (axe shaped head). The original on the left dates from 6-900 AD. The central one is a copy I was asked to make for a friend, which was hand carved in Westmorland slate. The right hand version is a bronze/resin cast made from a mould from my original. I don’t tend to make straight copies of things but as it was something I had already seen in the flesh, and really adored (it’s at The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts near me in Norwich) I thought why not and also it would be a good learning process, rather like when painters copy the work of ‘old masters’. I also did not think this would actually upset anyone and it is obviously not ‘within copyright’ due to its antiquity. The practice of copying can be useful to experience different techniques or a different set of aesthetic values or rules; to do things as you would not normally do them, and to be open minded about this. It can be seen as nourishing.

As a designer of sculpture, lettering and memorials, I try to be as original as possible but obviously I have lots of influences along the way and sometimes this feeds into my work, such as in this interesting memorial below:

This was inspired by some ancient Italian Stele’s I saw in Lunigiana:

I feel this sort of inspiration is great, and is similar to the way that Picasso, Brancusi or Modigliani for example were inspired by so-called ‘primitive art’ African masks, Cycladic sculpture, Indian Classical carving, Oceanic sculpture, and the list goes on.

However there have been times where my own hand-drawn designs have been copied. One time I designed a memorial for a client, with a carefully designed and hand drawn oak tree motif and a few months later I discovered they got it made (really poorly and presumably cheaper one would hope) by a local monumental mason and he’d used my design just as it was, presumably ignoring my name asserting my copyright on the design sheet. I’m sure this has happened lots of times to me over the years, especially when what seem like nice clients suddenly disappear into thin air.

The worst example of my own work being copied is in the case of a tree of life carving I made for a headstone back in 2011. This was hand drawn by me, inspired by Egyptian papyrus carvings, but interpreted in a way to make it my own work.

The client brought in a papyrus painting he’d acquired in Egypt, and some other objects from other places he had been with his wife Catriona. I tried some different designs out, finally settling on the tree of life below with the 5 symbolic birds:

This is my finished piece in York stone, almost exactly the same as the drawing above, and featuring carvings on both sides of the stone:

Several years later I discovered it had been digitised by someone, presumably after finding it on my website, and is being manufactured by a company in China, see here on Alibaba, where it’s still available! They seem to be bashing these out with CNC machines and grinders, they’re not hand carved. It was also being sold by a company in New Zealand that purported to be an ‘ethical memorial company’ employing craftspeople from around the world – that’s an interesting way of putting it, right? These images show their wares, in granite and Carrara marble respectively:

This sort of thing happens, especially in China where scruples are often hard to find. Basically someone has copied my once unique design EXACTLY as it is with the same number of leaves the same sort of texture on the different elements etc. There is no attempt to improve or alter it, zero creativity – just taking. I did contact both companies and the one in New Zealand apologised and took the product off their ‘list of options’. The chap in China was friendly enough and said he’d take it down, but it’s still there.

The worst and most interesting one to me was a fellow stone carver called ‘Anthony’ who posted a picture of his somewhat slavish (and flatter/less lively) copy on a stone carvers’ facebook group of which I am a member! When I challenged him directly he basically said he didn’t care that I was upset, and thought I was just moaning. I explained that the design was made for my client, and was personal and meaningful, and not for him to steal. He was not apologetic. The comments on the facebook post are enlightening, obviously mostly his friends saying ‘well done’.

I’ve hidden people’s identity here but you can see the sort of thing that was being said. He posted it in 2021 and again in 2022 just to wind me up of course. I won’t expose him but he was dismissive of me and was happy to take credit for the design himself. You’ll notice one stonemason commenting that I should basically shut up and take it as a compliment. I don’t agree by the way but tried to be diplomatic. Being completely original is difficult, but making a straight copy and not changing a single detail and not crediting the designer seems a bit smelly to me. I don’t lose sleep over this, but it’s an interesting area, and obviously some people don’t feel there’s anything wrong with this kind of behaviour (theft).

Another example of my work being copied exists in a cemetery near Kilkenny. I designed this stone for my client, and included a bold carving of a swirly interlocking knot taken from her beloved deceased mother’s ring. This motif is obviously very personal to her and powerful symbol, so when a few months later a similar stone appeared a few doors down you can imagine how upset the family were, it was like something of theirs had been stolen. See the last image:

I am not about to spend my life chasing up on these things, and I’m sure there are other ‘monumental stonemasons’ that end up being given designs done by sculptors and artists like myself, and they just say ‘yes of course I can make something like that’ and they don’t worry about the hours that were spent on making these mysterious designs that fall in their lap. Then they mostly bash things out as quickly as possible with no love. The drive of their business being money and not creativity and exploration.

I charge a small design fee now just in case this sort of thing happens, and offer clients to pay a fee for the copyright if they cannot afford for me to do the actual carving. In the past I would do sketches for nothing in order to try and secure work.

About 15 years ago I was asked to make this Celtic cross:

The client sent me a picture of a piece of jewellery that was incredibly intricate, and said could I make this in stone. I said yes, but it’ll be really expensive and assumed it would not turn into a commission but he accepted my price. I then explained to him that I felt uncomfortable copying someone else’s design, and I’d look into it. I managed to track down the jewellery maker in the US and asked him if he would mind me making a copy, and did he want a payment of some sort. He was just really pleased and in fact interested and said he’d love to see pictures of the finished piece. It therefore became a really positive three way conversation (me, client and designer) where everyone felt good and nobody took anything, and in fact connections were made.